We just did a bedroom make over and put u wall paper that's nearly the same colour as the walls in your dining room. Our problem was to find a wall colour to match out darkred and purple linens and curtains. Even our flooring (though we have hard flooring) is a light grey/brown colour. So I suggest adding some dark red (think red wine not fire truck) and purple accents to tie the things together. Maybe you could cover the chairs with dark red slipcovers? Put purple accents on the curtains? Maybe add an extra layer of curtain in purple or see through fabric? That way you can have your nice curtains drawn in the evening to close in the space and prevent people from looking in and during the day have light come in but nobody seeing in?

As for protecting the floor, why not buy a (cheap) (dried) grass mat and give it a colourfull trim? The sisal mats are ususally not very expensive but trimmed with a sturdy linen they can look great!

Also I don't know whats opposite the cabinet but I'd move the cabinet to the left and put the table more towards the window now next to the cabinet.

Looking at the photo's I think a rich deep turquoise would also be a great accent colour.

Hi, so sorry to hear of your misfortune. I understand that I must feel like its a bit superficial to deal with things like the look of your furniture, but it might just be something to keep your mind occupied and boost your ego when you make something nice! You could start by sorting the boxes into same styles, maybe ask for more of the same size/style boxes at shops or your office (I think the boxes for copying paper are a great size and they have lids!). Then you could dress them up smart by decoupaging them, covering them in fabric, painting them. You could decoupage them with magazine clippings, wallpaper (they often have end of line rolls for discount prices at the hardware store) of pictures of teh contents of the box. Dressing all the boxes in the sameclour/style ties up the look.If the bookcases are of the open on all sides type you could also make a fabric coverup for them with a curtain on the front part. Basicly you just make a big pillowcasay type of from which yu could slip over the book case. Or just get simple rods from harware stores, ikea, thriftshop to hang a nice curtain in front. I dont know where you live, but over here (netherlands) we can often get logs from the council when they have chopped down trees (like from building plots).If you have a lot of books and dont like them all you could even build a book case out of books! just pile up the unwanted books into equally sized piles and slip (very strong) glue in between. A friend of mine did this with book she inherrited.

With the old jeans you can do what ever you want, making pillows, slipcover etc sounds great!

I made these corsages (or boutonniere what ever you call it) for my boyfriends grand-parrents 60th wedding anniversary. Luckily they liked them a lot. I'm glad they turned out ok. it was my first time trying the kanzanschi technique.

WOW! I really had to look twice, before I could believe this. It's amazing how you managed to make something so wonderful out of pistachio shells. I'm hitting this rocks and then I'm off to buy pistachio's.

Just wondering, what kind of pistachio's did you use? The ones I know are quite greasy, will be a challenge to get those clean......

Not wanting to disappoint you, but craft is not a very much appreciated thing in the Netherlands and I don't know any craft galleries or Exhibitions. There's the textile museum in Tilburg (south Netherlands) and someone mentioned a craft fair on this site on the 20th of September on surinameplein in Amsterdam. Otherwise nothing I know of and I do keep an I out as I would like to go such places myself......Hope you enjoy your stay in the Netherlands though.

Hi,I'm a dental student in need of some new clothes for work/school. As a crafty person I would like to make these myself but I'm totally lost at what kind of pattern I could work from. I have some sewing experience but this is a real challenge. I'd like to make something nicer than the binliner model I've been wearing for the last few years, but how to make something (slightly) fitted yet be able to move comfortably in it whitout putting strain on the seams? Getting the fabric seems to have been the easy part.

These regulations apply to our clothing at school:- no bare legs - underarm bare- no cleavage or neckline deeper than 10 cm from the neck- being able to sit in it for hours whitout severing of some arteries- no frills

WOW MAX! what a wonderfull idea to make good clothes for big sizes. I'm from a family of big sized women, and although I'm not really big myself (European size 38 bottom, 40/42 top) I can not ignore the moaning about horrible big size clothes from the shops here. As has been said before the type of fabric seems to be a big deal. I wonder if some of the 'designers' actually hate big women. It would be lovely to see some of my younger family members be proud of their bodies. My sister is never going anywhere where she should be dressed girly because the girly dresses in her size just make her look horrible, instead of making the most of her assets.I support your cause and if you get a line of clothing done be sure to post a web adress or so, so I can show my family!